A House of Mirrors
by Fangirl Defenestrator
Summary: A series of vignettes revealing the reflections of Draco Malfoy.
1. Chapter 1

In the half-bated breath of summer, a boy sweeps past the ghosts in Malfoy Manor, his steps hurried and chased as he brings himself to mark every part of something he once owned. The vestiges are in the shadows behind worn furniture, clinging to torn paintings shrouded by black cloth, and the stir of his breath is enough to set them loose and feel their glistening stories brush against the tangle of a heart within his chest.

He breathes, he lives, and the chaos of it is enough to momentarily clear the air for something behind his eyes to click and settle, but it doesn't stop his hands from claiming and remembering to the beat of _mine minemine mine minemine _despite the rejection that shocks under his fingernails with every object.

That chair over there tall and fair was where his Mother read him nursery rhymes under the lazy dance of sunlight, but all he can see is the swallowing darkness as a glowing hand curls around its garnished armrest. A flash of green, red, the full offerings of the spectrum, and he sees these colors wherever he turns, from the vibrant crimson of the wallpaper to the lilied fields of a painting.

The shambles of a home swallow his feet whole, pulverized shards and soft dust gathering in the aftermath of a tornado that had torn up his childhood by the roots. And in the shy light of the fire of rebirth, he steps back from the burns of _forget_.

The coolness of his bedroom greets him like an old friend; his knees jar with despair in his sole sanctuary. It is his vessel, the remnant of a blonde boy who enjoyed Quidditch and lazy summers under the embrace of a tree, the taste of green apples on his overheated mouth, the twinkling twilight lit up by fireflies. This alone has kept the specters away, the smiling-eyed innocence grounded in the center of swirling ghosts and the beckoning of a snake.


	2. Chapter 2

There is a fury to sunsets, ebbing and gentle as it slides you into its fold. The end of a day is a show for awe, an explosion of dying color that tries to hold off the dusty stars as long as possible while the light casts shadows in reminder of the warmth it once brought.

And under Midas' touch, the world is known to hold on a hushed breath that stretches out to the very edge of ocean meets sky, a vortex of wide eyes and a tugging within one's chest. Because in the death of the sun, one that may one day lead darkness away to...never come back, its attempt at last hurrah is pitiful. Pitiful because overplaying a last hurrah leaves it not much of a hurrah at all, a token of guaranteed expectation instead of anticipated advent.

Draco sits in such sunsets as these and rolls then across his tongue, his nose, the pads of his thumbs, the pooling gray of his irises. He drinks in the sunset in the belief that it will not last, in the belief that it will be his last.

And the clutch of beauty in his heart leaves him gasping for breath as he traces the outline of sky and earth as they seal a kiss. He wants to press this sensation between the covers of a book. Carry the dead flower of life in his pocket wherever he goes.

There's a beauty in the world's death in that he draws his own life into his lungs with something akin to amazement, a shuddering rasp of brevity as the world continues to hum with permanence.


	3. Chapter 3

All he knows is that stars dance beneath his eyelids, a cluster of constellations grouping to give a shape to pain. It's a wild explosion within his head, and Draco Malfoy revels in the juncture of a fist with his head, the crack of a palm against his nose, the blissful acceptance that he is being beaten to pulp like a ragged doll.

The pain results in a reshuffling so deep that he's certain the very atoms of his being are being shaken and rewritten as he draws in jagged breaths of the cosmos. The pulsing replaces thought, replaces reason, and that's how he justifies welcoming the blows of a muggle in an alleyway after having too much to drink.

He sways to one side and is steadied by fate, the other by brick wall as he feels hysteria—or maybe it's puke—bubble up in his throat and rise in his chest to empty itself beside a trash can. Garbled cursing greets him from his assaulter and distant steps sound to leave him alone with nothing but an aching body and a pool of his own vomit, and he is once again plunged into a yearning for _something_ to deal with the despair shaking his entire body.

Because the night is young and the stars are cold and the breeze of _what are you doing with yourself _brushes past his glowing hair, he is forced to gather the young man spilling out into the air and stuff him back into his crooked body like a mad surgeon with his uneven stitches. Up and down and across and diagonal are the ways in which he knits back flesh and soul until a sad puppet twitches against strings, just in time for the impending start of tomorrow.


End file.
